Melina Kanakaredes

Melina Kanakaredes (born 23 April 1967) is a Daytime Emmy Award-nominated Greek-American actress, but she is most widely-known for two starring roles on U.S. prime-time television drama series: playing Det. Stella Bonasera in CSI New York and playing Dr. Sydney Hansen in Providence (TV series).

Kanakaredes' first TV role was on the daytime drama the Guiding Light, originating the role of Eleni Andros Spaulding Cooper from 1991 to 1995. She was nominated twice for the Daytime Emmy Awards for her portrayal of Eleni.

Her most high-profile roles on television were as the series protagonist Dr. Sydney Hansen on Providence (TV series), which ran for five TV seasons (1999–2002), and since 2004 in a leading role on the CBS-TV drama series CSI New York as the detective Stella Bonasera.

Her other television credits include NYPD Blue (in a recurring role as reporter Benita Alden during that TV show's second season), Northern Exposure, Due South, Oz (TV series), The Practice, MTV's The Ben Stiller Show, and a Hallmark Hall of Fame adaptation of the Anne Tyler novel Saint Maybe.

Her appearances in movies include The Long Kiss Goodnight as Trin and 15 Minutes as Nicolette Karas, the girlfriend of Robert De Niro's character. She was considered for the lead role in My Big Fat Greek Wedding but she had to turn it down due to her pregnancy

Melina Kanakaredes was born in Akron, Ohio, in a Greek-American family. She is a second-generation American and she is fluent in Greek. Her two maternal uncles own and run a candy store in Akron called "Temo's Candy Company", a chocolate store established in its current location by Kanakaredes' great-uncle Christ Temo. Melina's sister is an attorney in Akron, Ohio.

Melina Kanakaredes graduated from the Firestone High School in Akron. She attended the Ohio State University for a short time, and then she transferred to the Point Park College in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. She graduated from Point Park in 1989 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in theater arts.

She married Peter Constantinides on 6 September 1992. The couple has two daughters, Zoe and Karina Eleni. She and her husband, a former restaurant consultant, own the "Tria Greek Kuzina" in Powell, Ohio.